Kuwaii relied on a handwritten duplicate receipt book to log sales and wasn’t tracking stock levels at all. The retailer needed an upgrade!

Owner and designer Kristy Barber founded Kuwaii in 2008, immediately after graduating fashion school. Her brand turns on the idea that clothing is an investment - that fast fashion is doing significant damage to the industry and that what you wear should be “treasured and worthy of care.”

The idea that Kuwaii could take the lead in reversing this current fast-fashion trend has been and is still a driving force behind Kristy’s passion for her company, and it’s propelled Kuwaii along a path of considerable success. Four years after Kuwaii’s genesis in 2008, Kristy opened her first brick and mortar location in Brunswick, Melbourne (which she calls “our spiritual home”).

After another two years of growth, Kristy decided to open a second store - this time on the corner of Flinders Lane, in Melbourne’s Cathedral Arcade.

But all this time, she’d been spending significant hours manually logging sales in a handwritten duplicate receipt book, and she’d also been without an inventory management system. She realized that a strong point of sale system would be in Kuwaii’s best interest and set out to find her perfect fit.

“Having my sales data available anytime, anywhere has allowed me to step back from the day-to-day running of the business, which has been amazing for growth.”

Kristy Barber, Owner and Designer at Kuwaii

The solution

Vend came highly recommended by a friend who ran a similar business. When Kristy checked it out, she was impressed by the system’s intuitive design and ease-of-use.

Kuwaii made the switch to Vend - and as Kristy tells it, they’ve never been happier.

The system’s ease-of-use meant that Kristy and her employees could get everything up and running quickly, and the intuitive design allowed them to start using Vend immediately and with minimal confusion.

Kristy also chose Vend for its intensive inventory management capabilities and the quick, simple nature of automating inventory procedures. So the frustrating hassle of running a business without tracking stock? Gone!

And all that manual effort the team once put into handwritten logs? A thing of the past.

Vend automated all these time-consuming back-office tasks, allowing Kristy to focus on effectively running and quickly growing her business.

Kristy and the Kuwaii team now use Vend on iMac in their two brick and mortar locations. “This was the right setup for us,” Kristy says, “because the staff in-store have other responsibilities they need a computer for during the day.”

To complete her small-business solution, Kristy chose a custom WordPress site to manage her ecommerce, as well as PayPal, eWAY, and Afterpay for payments.

“Vend has allowed me to step back a bit from the day-to-day running of Kuwaii. For an owner of a small business, this is an absolute godsend!”

Kristy Barber, Owner and Designer at Kuwaii

The results

Business size doubled in 1 year, the freedom to manage operations from anywhere in the world, greater staff autonomy in daily tasks, complete control over inventory, and a deeper understanding of business analytics thanks to Vend Reporting

“We switched to Vend just in time,” Kristy says. “Our business grew majorly after the transition!”

Because Vend is cloud-based, Kristy can access her business’s data from anywhere in the world; this has freed her from spending all her time in-store and has given her the “incredible” ability to step back from the day-to-day running of Kuwaii.

In gaining back these valuable hours, Kristy has been able to let go of the little things (admin, stock issues, staff permissions, etc.) and instead take a higher-level approach to running the business - especially now that her staff operates with greater autonomy when it comes to repairs, returns, and exchanges.

“Vend has meant the retail stores can operate freely, and I can peek in to check at any time or place that I need to,” Kristy notes.

Kristy has used Vend’s inventory management features to take complete control of her warehouse. Where once she was adrift in the sea of stock, now she’s able to order efficiently and effectively and to enjoy total peace of mind thanks to Vend’s capabilities.

She’s also used Vend Reporting to gain detailed insights into the inner workings of Kuwaii and has harnessed the program’s analytics to make better business and design decisions.

The bottom line? By taking over all that time-consuming and irritating admin and by getting Kuwaii’s inventory in order, Vend has given Kristy the time and freedom to focus on what’s important: designing her sustainability-conscious and locally made wares and growing Kuwaii into a formidable opponent of the fast-fashion titans.